dlvr.it
In defense of a distinction
Thirty years ago, Block proposed a hugely influential distinction between phenomenal (P) and access (A) consciousness [1,2]. A state is P-conscious if there is something it is like to be in it, and A-conscious if its content is available for reasoning, rational action guidance, and report. Block’s distinction is principally conceptual, but Block has since offered introspective, behavioral, and neuroscientific grounds for thinking that A-consciousness and P-consciousness actually dissociate. For instance, he has argued that iconic and fragile short-term memories are often P-conscious but not A-conscious; that ‘exclusion’ paradigms evidence contents which are P-conscious but not A-conscious; and that local recurrent processing in posterior regions realizes P-consciousness without the anterior activity required for A-consciousness [3–6].
